Rule number one: Don't get the grammar wrong in your band name. AN Handful of Dust?! That's a hard one for me to let pass, trust me.

Anyway, the music is what it's all about, so let's focus. To be down-right and pains-takingly honest, this four-track EP sounds awful. The production stinks, the mix sucks and singer Mauro hardly ever hits a note. Drummer Christian dominates the soundscape completely and he certainly does sound like an ambitious drummer who wishes to fill all silence with his talented, yet pervasive drumming style. Guitarists Nicolas and Giovanni and bassist Gianlucca also do their bit with some provess, but it isn't at first obvious because of the poor production.

If this is all such a misery, then why, oh, why have I rewarded this with a 45/100 rating?

Well, no matter how horrendous this sounds, it is blatantly obvious that these five Italians have a real talent for composing song. These are four songs are actually wonderful, wonderful pieces of slightly progressive metal music with a tendency towards goth and doom! Through the dim of terrible production and a singer who's trying to move into territories he cannot master, the songs move through many different moods and diverse elements of prog, goth and doom in a way that many other bands would (or should) envy them.

Is this a band who should in fact write music but not play it themselves? Probably not, but they should certainly take the time and find the money for a real producer and work on how to make Mauro fit into the other pieces of the musical puzzle. Crack on, boys!